13.5. 43

Most of the time, I do not feel 43.  34 maybe.  17 sometimes.  12, too.  But far less often 43.

People who are younger than I am, often by a fair number of years, I still think of as my elders.  Nearly all professional athletes, for instance.  Why is that?

Today is my birthday, which may make it a day for sober reflection, as if every day isn't already such a day.  One day closer death, one day closer to my last basketball game, one day closer to retirement, one day closer to the bike crash I surely will one day have--because I don't intend any time soon to quit biking, and if you bike long enough, you will fall off sometime--and so on.

In my 43rd year I'd like to eat more vegetables, especially those grown in my own garden.  I'd like write more worthwhile blog posts, or at least funnier ones.  I'd like to revisit Wrigley Field to see the Cubs play an afternoon game.  I'd like spend more summer evenings strumming my uke by the campfire.  I'd like to join a Sunday School class again (why, five years ago, did we move from a church that gave up on adult Sunday School to one that had given up on adult Sunday School?).  I'd like like to dunk a basketball one more time--but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

 I'm looking forward to it.